Dead chicken and don't know the cause

[chickencrazyinHT]

My husband found one of our leghorns dead in the coop yesterday and we have no idea what happened. She shared a coop with 5 other leghorns. We let them free range the night before and all seemed ok with the girls. He came home from work the next day and she was laying in the middle of the coop dead. No marks or signs that anything killed her, just dead...any opinions on what could have happened. Do some healthy chickens just die out of the blue sometimes? They were about 18 weeks old and some had started laying eggs. We don't know which ones were laying. We wondered if something went wrong with her maybe trying to produce an egg. Eggbound? If a hen was eggbound how long would it take before she died? It's got us stumped. We are hoping its not a disease or anything. All the other girls seem energetic and ok right now. Any opinions?

 

[CMV]

Sometimes chickens just die for no apparent reason. Bad hearts or reproductive issues are usually the best guess. Sorry for your loss.

 

[chickensioux]

So sorry for the loss. Unfortunately, the only way to know for sure what happened is to have a necropsy done. Chickens do tend to die unexpectedly for no apparent reason but there usually is an underlying cause. Heart, reproductive (as said before) or disease. If you have a vet in the area that would do this for you, that is the only way to know for sure.